Today's multimedia devices have sophisticated digital sound and full motion video capabilities which make such devices very suitable for entertainment and educational applications in users' homes. The contents of many printed books are now commercially available as multimedia books and applications encoded in CD-ROMs. Unfortunately, using a multimedia book or application on a host device is not simple at all.
Most of today's multimedia books lack the feel of printed books and cannot easily be categorized as books on a bookstore shelf. Children, the main targets of multimedia books, usually cannot use such books without adult help. Today's multimedia books have the feel and ease of use of ordinary computer programs. A significant level of computer knowledge is required to "read" a multimedia book, typically by using input devices such as a mouse, computer keyboard or game controller.
For example, to use a CD-ROM based multimedia book, the user must do the following on an IBM PC host device:
1. Start the Windows operating environment;
2. Insert the CD-ROM into the drive;
3. Find the appropriate icon and double click on the icon, or,
If the icon is not available, use the File Manager's menu to select "File" and "Run" and then type the name of the executable file such as "WP", followed by the Enter key.
The above procedure is not simple for anyone other than experienced Windows users. A similar procedure must be followed for a Macintosh host device.
Although in using a game platform such as 3DO platform or a Sega platform it is considerably simpler to start an application, the user is required to toggle the power switch after insertion of a game cartridge, which can be a significant task for a two year old child. A similar toggling of power switch is required for boot-up diskettes for personal computers. Toggling of the power switch forces a user to wait for the personal computer or game platform to go through the boot-up sequence which can last for typically 20 to 30 seconds. Moreover, the user must know that merely inserting a CD-ROM into a peripheral is not enough and that some button must be toggled or pressed. Also, the user must know the specific button on the host device such as a power switch or CTL-ALT-DEL for an IBM PC.
Although some host devices automatically check a disk drive for a file of commands to be run, such checking is done only during power up for booting the operating system. Once a host device has been powered up and is running the operating system, the user must manually start an application (for example by clicking the mouse on an icon or by typing commands such as "MSINSTR"). After the application has started, the user must know and remember the commands necessary to perform various functions of retrieval and display, the names of data accessible by the host device and must make the associations between the commands, functions and data. Another problem with today's multimedia books is that book authors find it difficult to turn ideas for children's books into products because of the inherent complexity of a multimedia book development process.
Remote controls for television (TV) are well known in the art. Conventional TV remote controls have a rectangular box shape and have function buttons which can cause the TV to switch to a desired channel. However, a user must find out the programs available for viewing (for example by consulting a TV guide to find a desired program), remember the associated channel number and then switch to the desired channel by pressing the appropriate function button on the remote control.
Children's sound books are well known in the art. Such children's sound books have a button which when pressed plays a sound locally from a speaker embedded in the sound book and electrically connected to the button.